Beer: Reviews & Ratings

Reviews by charrel:

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4.18/5 rDev -3%

Second time having this one. Reviewed at Big Meadow Campground, Shenandoah National Park, VA. Full notes taken.

A- Stubby bottle is poured into a goblet with a thick, midnight black body. The head is dark and brown like cocoa with a frothy semi-thick consistency. Pretty good retention and a medium thick ring deposits spotty and webbed lace.

S- Strong coffee and chocolate and you can tell that it comes from both the malts and adjunct ingredients. Deeply roasted grains, caramel and some green chiles coming to mind. Rich.

T- The peppers pick up strength here and become one of the prominent elements of the brew with flavor but not a lot of heat. Cocoa nibs, vanilla and coffee are moderately strong and combine to be a dessert like force. Roast grains provide many flavors of their own that overlap with the adjuncts but they act to hold thr flavors together as a base.

MF- Thick but not overly so with a chewy creaminess and silky smooth texture. Carbonation right down the middle at a medium level allowing the decadent flavors to come out. Roast finish with just a hint of pepper heat.

Hmm, this is a tough one to review. In a way I really like the chiles but they might add just a bit too much flavor and are distracting to the very nice cocoa and vanilla decadence beneath. Personally I think its quite nice. (1,323 characters)

Bottle courtesy of kantrauch on RB. Pours the deep, rich black with semi-fluffy mocha colored head that had some decent staying power. Head fades into thick collar, and heavy wisps. Aroma is mostly coffee and dark chocolate, with some cinnamon and a slight hint of vanilla peeking through as well. Taste is the chocolate up front, the chile right behind that, the coffee comes in after the chile heat fades and then the coffee fades back into the chile heat. I do not taste the vanilla. I also get a touch of smoked woodiness in the aftertaste. Body is lacking quite a bit IMHO. I like my stouts to have a huge, thick mouthfeel and this is a medium body, but has the nice low carbonation I enjoy in stouts. I enjoyed this beer very much; the aroma was enticing and hinted at what you could expect from the taste, without giving too much away. (842 characters)

So here it is, my 600th review. Wow. Seems like a lot of time spent on beer (and it is), but I wouldn’t have it any other way. And to celebrate, here’s a collaboration between two recent favorites: Evil Twin and Prairie. Cheers.

Batch 1, green wax/plastic over the cap.

A: Black and thick, pouring like motor oil from the bottle. A menacingly dark, mocha head covers the top of the body with a layer of perfectly flat cream, but only for the first few moments after the pour; soon after, it falls under its own weight, leaving a raised ring on the outside of the glass and some wet, sandy lacing above. Looks absolutely diabolical.

S: Spectacular. Cocoa and coffee come blazing out of the glass with a beautiful gourmet aroma – not sweet or candy-like, but earthy and grounded – along with the equally gorgeous nuances of chili powder, peat, flint, brandy, and black strap molasses. Just about as inviting as a stout nose can be.

T: What a beer. Each sip is a mouthful of fudgy brownie batter, roasted pecan, chocolate-covered espresso bean, vanilla...I could drink this all day. The palate is expansive and densely-packed, sure, but the balance is uncanny: its chocolaty sweetness is subdued under a slow-burning dryness, a bitter smoke and prickly, hoppy pine that condenses to take over the back end of the palate. Scattered throughout are bits of added complexity, as well: notes of old oak, blackberry preserves, maple, and chili pepper. Smoky, slightly dry and chalky aftertaste, a testament to the thick roasted malts.

M: Wonderfully milky, but with an interesting heat from the chilies; it warms on the way down with alcohol and that subtle fieriness. Mild carbonation starts to bubble up toward the end, but on the whole, this beer remains full-bodied and rich.

O: A treat for any beer drinker. Just beautiful. I think I’d take this over Prairie Bomb, since this one has a denser, more satisfying texture. Truly world-class, as are both of these breweries – I’m very glad to have this as a milestone review. Here’s to 600 more as satisfying as this! (2,080 characters)

Overall seems to be missing just a bit. Nice ancho chili heat, decent dark malts, pretty tasty, but just seems like it's missing that extra umph. Could be that my taste buds were starting to get overwhelmed at this point too. Not sure. (936 characters)

Black in color, maybe a little dark brown around the edges, with a conservative pour still giving a full two fingers of chocolate-brown head, which soon settled to a thick ring and dabbed the glass with lace. Perhaps unexpected for such a high ABV beer, but nothing wrong with that. In the nose, chocolate and roasted dark malts, somewhat grainy, notes of char and coffee grounds. Didn't get any vanilla or pepper in the aroma. Taste was decent, cocoa powder and dark malt roastiness, coffee and cream, slightly astringent, with a hint of pepper spice in the finish. From reading other reviews, this seems like a very inconsistent beer. Mouthfeel was medium bordering on full, pretty slick, and actually not too boozy for a 13% brew, but the effects were definitely felt soon after. Pretty good overall. Much better than Bomb anyway. (914 characters)

With the firm and chocolaty underpinnings of Evil Twin's Even More Jesus and the decoration of spice from Prairie Bomb, this collaboration ale seduces the taste buds with notions of spice cake and brownies as a "come to Jesus" meeting occurs with the palate and the soul

Similar to the "Bomb", the beer is jet-black. A light cocoa-like haze give impressions of density that's pushed higher by its sheer darkness. That density continues as its head billows with a marshmallowy visual texture and folds back into its dark abyss under its own voluminous weight. Its light carbonation forbade any meaningful lace- preferring rich port and brandy appearances to that of stout.

Smoothly roasty and chocolaty in aroma, the beer is full of espresso, heavy toast, molasses and walnuts. Umami and cake like scents stem into the sherry savory character to support the chocolate and coffee. Charred fruit, campfire, light pepper and a twinge of bourbon, vanilla and oak rounds out the nose as the first sip arrives.

Mouth coating with the roasted bitter taste of espresso, cocoa, toasted walnut and deep molasses- all round into a lush fudgy taste and texture. Its brownie-type cake sweetness is supportive and savory. The middle palate introduces a a glimpse into bourbon-soaked cherries, blackcurrant, raisins and a pep of aniseed become carry the taste into a finish of capsacin and alcohol spice.

Its full body is silky, creamy and bready-sweet. Is deeply embedded carbonation provides a marhmallowy texture as well as the sweetness wraps around the tongue and is slow to release. Its long and lingering sweetness rewards the taste buds far after the sip has finished, leaving flavors of chocolate covered espresso beans and light pepper trekking onward.

Similar to Bomb, Bible Belt is a deeper, sweeter and more brownie-like taste that's not as arid as the Bomb. Those Even More Jesus attributes support the spices to near perfection. (1,932 characters)

T: salty chocolate ... coffee; can't taste the alcohol as much as you can feel the burn; plenty of burnt malt with some of the bitterness coming from hops (?) ... it's got some bitter to it; not as sweet as the nose but the balance of bitter/sweet is still good

F: weighty but not overly syrupy with just enough carbonation to help you drink it; burn from the alcohol is always present

O: classic everything for a big stout: loads of coffee, huge bitter presence smoothed out by huge malt presence, sweet nose, some vanilla softness and so much alcohol you automatically settle in to sipping mode. i love it. (1,088 characters)

Uncaps without a sound, worryingly. However, it seems my fears of uncarbonation are unfounded, as it pours with a lovely creamy head of pale golden-toned brown, above a thoroughly rich body that looks a bit like melted high-cacao chocolate. Lacing forms solidly as well—relying on both the foam and the weight of the beer to sustain it. It looks pretty magnificent.

And... holy crap. That nose. That. Nose. Wow. Let me just collect myself a little bit here. This is amazing stuff: huge, powerful, rich, supple, complex and potent. Big robust coffee characters puncture everything ripping through characters of chocolate, deep malt, raw cacao, mole and anise. Entwined with this is a crisp capsicum potency: the chilli provides a crispness to the aroma that works with the fresh, fruity coffee tones. This is phenomenal stuff—I hope they know they've created surely one of the best-smelling beers in the world.

Taste is also excellent. Smooth and supple throughout, driven by beautiful layers of cacao-rich chocolate providing a bittersweet base. Spicy aromatics lift the palate and complicate it (in the best possible way), while the coffee lingers towards the back giving a zesty bitterness laced with earthy gravitas. Wow, there is so much going on here. This is unbelievably good stuff.

Feel is perfect—just perfect. I can't believe I was worried about a lack of carbonation. There's such a richness to the feel, lightened both by the subtle spice and the mild creaminess of the carb. Wonderful stuff.

Just, wow. I'm speechless. It's rare that so good a beer comes along, especially when I'm not expecting it, like with this one. I mean, Evil Twin's Even More Jesus is good, and I've really enjoyed Prairie's other beers—but when your strong line is new-world farmhouse ales, I just did not expect such a phenomenal imperial stout to come out of the stable. I'm humbled and awestruck. (1,966 characters)

t - Tastes of dark chocolate, roasted malts, oak, burnt malts, bitter anise, coffee, toasted malts, and light chili peppers. More pepper as it warms and more coffee than the nose. Little more bitter than expecting, step down from the nose but very good.

m - Medium body and low to moderate carbonation. No alcohol heat or heat from the peppers. Little thicker body and a little more carbonation and this would be perfect.

o - Overall I thought this was a really great, and I definitely liked it better than their Prairie Bomb. More coffee and less heat and spicy peppers than Prairie Bomb, so I found this more drinkable, and allowed the coffee and vanilla to shine through more. I ended up liking Pirate Bomb a little more than this but you can't go wrong with either. Would love to have it again. (1,377 characters)

T: Very rich and very complex. Pepper heat at the tip of the tongue. This trends to a very rich and bitter espresso explosion. Huge amounts of chocolate are present before the pepper heat takes over again.

M: Thick and chewy, this beer feels every bit of the 13% abv. However, the alcohol heat was surprisingly lacking, or possibly masked by the peppers.

O: Incredible. While I still prefer the Bomb! by a small margin, this beer is amazing in it's own right. (743 characters)

APP- Pitch black with an almost rust-colored head, no legs, no lace, fair retention, opaque.

AROMA- peaberry coffee, bitter dark chocolate, molasses, fig pit, extremely faint herbal hop, hint of perique tobacco, - and this is all with a sinus infection... overall very subtle and smooth, not very intense, but extraordinarily cohesive

FLAVOR- Wow. Nicely stacked flavors. medium-high dark molasses sweetness coats the palate first before morphing into roasted coffee and then turning charrded then smoky. I get a hint of fresh green chili skin riding a higher alcohol, moments of dried cherry and anise manage to poke through, odd salmieak character, no discernible hop character or bitterness, no real off-flavors. Gets oddly floral with wartmth. Also picking up some olive notes (not good).

MF- Extremely syrupy. Literally makes my lips stick together. Made velvety by medium-low carbonation. Lots of heat, hits sinuses, unclear if it is from alcohol or chili, but burns either way. Still, does not linger unpleasantly on the palate and avoids paint-thinner / gag gum territory.

OVERALL - Not the most elegant or complex thing I've ever had, but very interesting and unique combo of flavors and sensations. Certainly worth revisiting, does live up to the hype, is far and away the best chili beer I've ever had, and has surprising verve for a 13 percent chili beer. (1,373 characters)